The truth about Israel, America and the rest of the world

The Washington Post’s Richard Cohen is no friend of the Bush administration, is staunchly anti-War, and, as he’s proven in past columns, he’s certainly not an unbiased admirer of Israel.  Nevertheless, he’s astutely put his finger on the fact that America’s support for Israel, not the Iraq War, is one of the reasons that the Arab and Muslim world loathes us so much — as well as the fact that America cannot in good conscience abandon Israel to the Arab and Muslim dogs:

Tidying up the other day, I came across an old newspaper and, flipping through it, saw a picture on page 22 that made my heart stop. It showed Palestinians, most of them young, all of them males, reacting with glee to a particularly heinous terrorist attack. The date was Sept. 12, 2001, and the Palestinians were cheering the deaths of about 3,000 innocent Americans the day before. You can, as they say, look it up.

What you don’t have to look up, though, is the fact that this was before America’s retaliatory invasion of Afghanistan or the war in Iraq. It was also before Guantanamo became shorthand for abuse of the president’s constitutional authority and before the outrage of Abu Ghraib, the U.S.-run prison in Iraq where suspected terrorists were sometimes sexually abused. In other words, the demonstration by Palestinians (in the Lebanese refugee camp of Shatila) preceded most of the usual reasons given for why America today is held in contempt by much of the world.

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Still, the chief reason for the cheering on 9/11 was U.S. support for Israel. Sometimes that support has been mindless and sometimes it has been over the top, but fundamentally it is based on certain truths. The first is that Israel is a legally sanctioned state, created by the United Nations in 1948 and recognized soon after by most countries, including — amazingly enough — those Cold War adversaries, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

The second is that at least one Islamic state (Iran) and a host of militant organizations — Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and, of course, al-Qaeda — fervently wish Israel’s destruction. There is no way the U.S. could appease these groups and not, in the process, trample on its own moral values. Israel on occasion is wrong — and the settlements are an abomination — but its existence is right.

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But, in a way, America has little choice but to be hated in some parts of the world. The U.S. is never going to truly popular as long as it insists on adhering to certain principles. Russia, which is creeping back to totalitarianism, does not have this problem. China, which is already authoritarian and obstructionist on Darfur, does not have this problem, either. Cuba, which is authoritarian, obstructionist and vile, also does not have this problem. Many Serbs hate America for the NATO bombing of that country, but it stopped the killing in the Balkans. Tell me that was the wrong thing to do.

Alastair Campbell, a one-time spokesman for Tony Blair while he was prime minister, has published a book in Britain titled “The Blair Years.” In it, he recounts Sept. 12, 2001, at 10 Downing Street and the procession of briefers who came to the prime minister that day: “One of the experts … a total Arabist, came very close to saying the attack was justified, saying the Americans should look to their own policy on the Middle East to understand why so many people don’t like them.”

It’s always nice to have friends. Sometimes, though, it’s more honorable to have enemies.

Hat tip:  Independent Women’s Forum